More than 178 seasonal flights booked at Sofia Airport this year compared to 80 such bookings last year,” said Minister of Tourism, Nikolina Angelkova, speaking at the first Aviation Industry Award ceremony in Bulgaria.

“It is great pleasure for me to attend the first edition of the Aviation Industry Award. The presence of tourism here and my presence here is quite natural because we cannot develop tourism without connectedness, without airlines,” Minister Angelkova stated.

“That is why we welcome such initiatives, which will show the quality of service, innovative solutions that all airlines offer so that passengers to feel comfortable. I welcome this initiative also because the winners were selected not only for the additional services they provide and for innovative services they offer, but also on the basis of the opinion of passengers, tour operators and agents that are crucial for the implementation of the tourist service and the most important corrective,” she added.

“We are facing the winter tourist season, and without having flights and connectivity, we can hardly ensure to be successful. The figures that we have to date make me very optimistic for the season. More than 178 seasonal flights are booked at Sofia Airport compared with 80 last year - 69 from the UK - our main market, compared with 24 last year. 7 times more flights from Kiev, including the new destination Copenhagen. Not to mention the frequency of flights from our main markets such as Russia, Britain, Turkey and Israel. So for us it is important to have as many flights as many new destinations and routes and we as a ministry of tourism will support this development,” Minister Angelkova said.

Minster Angelkova congratulated Varna Airport on their 500,000th passenger who came on a flight Moscow – Varna.

“I would like to congratulate Varna Airport and Fraport Twin Star Airport Management on their 500,000th passenger of Russia. Russia is one of our most important markets; it is highly targeted market and this shows that relations between the two countries in the field of tourism are very good and will get even better,” the Minister said.

“Some of the largest Russian tour agencies and representatives of Russian media in the field of tourism visited Bulgaria. They were extremely satisfied with what they saw and stressed that the capacity of our country is very good. I am going to meet with the President of the Russian Federation of Tourism Mr Safonov. We will discuss the results of the roundtable discussion, including what will do for next season in terms of visa procedures,” Minister Angelkova said.

The SKY STARS 2015 official ceremony gathered the best companies and foreign experts and specialists from the Bulgarian branch. The competition involved 21 airlines and 14 companies related to aviation industry. This is the first event specialised for companies in the travel business and aviation industry.